CULTURAL WORKINGS

Welcome to THE CULTURAL WORKER, a blog dedicated to arts of the people ranging from the radical avant garde and free jazz to dissident folk forms and popular arts . The Cultural Worker celebrates revolutionary creativity and features a variety of essays, reviews, fiction, reportage, poetry and musings through the internet pen of this writer, musician and cultural organizer. Scroll straight down and you'll also find an extensive historical Photo Exhibit of cultural workers in action, followed by a series of Radical Arts Links. The features herein will be unabashedly partisan---make no mistake about that. The concept of the cultural worker as a force of fearless creativity, of social change, indeed as an artistic arm of radicalism, has always been left-wing when applied with any degree of honesty at all. No revolutionary act can be truly complete in the absence of art, no progressive campaign can retain its message sans the daring drumbeat of invention, no act of dissent can stand so strong as that which counts the writers, musicians, painters, dancers, actors, photographers, film and performance artists within its ranks. Here's to the history and legacy of cultural work in the throes of the good fight...john pietaro

Sunday, November 30, 2014

On the heels of my last posting to the Cultural Worker, as news of the passing of Will Connell becomes more widespread, I am happy to report that Will's week at the Stone shall stand. Even through the blue reality, there is cause to celebrate.

His residency at this, one of the few Downtown spaces left downtown, set for December 23, 26, 27 and 28, was all Will spoke about for months. His daughter Safiya Martinez recently told me that the week of concerts at this space, "was simply his dream". He had planned on the concept for years and was working tirelessly to get all of the music together, arranged, copied out. It would not be hyperbole to say that Will was living for this event. This makes the strange and sudden loss that much more of an injustice. But, in classic Will style, the musicians already dedicated to this residency are making no fuss, no moan, and carrying on. In tribute.

I made plans to spend last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, in Will's apartment on East 9th Street with Safiya, Ras Moshe, Jason Hwang and Rocco John Iacovone. We represented a cross section of Will's time in NYC, or at least a reasonable facsimile. Our task was to examine boxes of music in a somewhat anxious attempt to find the score and parts for the epic two-part "World Peace, With or Without People", a work that includes segments of music and poetry from the Horace Tapscott years through these days. In many ways, it is Will's own story. As dissonant as it is dissident, rapturous as tumultuous, equal parts ballad and experimental adventure, boldly singing, frenetically swinging. All of that and yet nearly no one had seen the final product, let alone could identify exactly where he had it hidden. Even as we planned on the venture I worried that we may never find it the manuscript...

It was nearly noon and so I hurriedly moved east on 8th Street, into St Mark's Place after my ascent from the subway station on lower Broadway. It was a long walk but one I have always enjoyed: even with the gentrification, with NYU taking over the landscape, even with the well-heeled corporate-types pretending to slum it and the wannebe hipsters carrying plastic arts dogma close at hand, that part of Broadway melds wonderfully into the East Village. They cannot squeeze the bohemian spirit out, even when the bohemian is priced out. That's both the lure of New York and its shame.

Once inside Tompkins Square Park you can almost forget the gleaming glass towers within range---and that so many powerful musicians, writers, painters, actors and dancers have lived and worked here. Rarely thriving, almost certainly struggling, but ensuring that this downtown area would remain hallowed ground. Will was among them, maintaining the rigors of a day job just to pay the rent while living out his calling. And like most, he suffered the devious developers, vampire landlord archetypes, breathing down his throat. The artists that pave the road in the poorest 'hoods are eventually driven out, one way or another. Yeah, its New York's shame.

Emerging onto Charlie Parker Way I moved quickly over to 9th and found my way to Will's place. Safiya greeted me with a warm hello. Ras was there already. She asked that we three stand over Will's piano where she'd set a candle and some small remembrances of her father in modest reverie. She spoke across the spectrum to Will and asked him to help in our search for the charts we needed to carry out his vision. After a moment, we were into our task, soon joined in by her mother/Will's ex-wife Thea Martinez, Rocco and then Jason--who'd worked with Will for so many years and was invaluable in assessing the music we went through. .

I looked around the neat studio apartment with its white walls and basic furniture, and marveling over the books: on shelves, in stacks and sitting in most of the otherwise empty spots. The guy was a real intellectual and his choice in books, on Black Liberation, yoga, the horoscope, world history, art, literature and philosophy, and in no particular order, spoke volumes. Where would this man have stored the manuscript we so desperately needed?

Carefully rummaging the boxes, the stories of Will began and there was laughter. Gentle remembrances and bits of imitations of some of his catch-phrases--his raised eyebrow smirk, his tendency to lean in close when trying to get your attention. We saw scores for works dating back 40 years amidst clippings he'd saved, handwritten notes and a few photos. In no particular order. Folders filled with standards could include a flugelhorn part from "Intaka"; stacks of his copying work for David Murray might contain lists of his ideas; the backs of envelopes were as valuable as onion skin manuscript paper in this search. Realizing that parts of "World Peace" included Will's compositions performed in more recent times, we separated the pieces and made sure to compile the part we'd probably need.

After we found some important components, the group, now joined by yet another musician friend, came to the sad conclusion that perhaps we simply weren't going to find the Tapscott-era material--the main part of the first set slated for December 23. Or its important poetry, that which told the tale of "World Peace". This was troubling, to say the least. Where could this material be?? But something had me take a look in a box someone else had already gone through. "No, no, its not in there", I was told, "I already examined everything". But something had me continue on. I lifted up a pile of charts from the large box and looking downward could see, clipped together, a small stack of photocopied sheets. It stood out so I pulled it up and out. Here were the Tapscott-era charts! We scrambled back into the box and found another similarly clipped stack; yes, it was indeed the poetry! Will came through after all.

As I write this, we are awaiting a senior member of the group to take charge and decide how best to present theses charts of Will's and the ideas he conveyed but never got to write out. But its good to know that his dream will be shared with everyone on December 23, 26, 27 and 28. Will Connell made a real impact on the creative music scenes on both coasts, scenes that he not only performed in but actually helped forge.........

New York, NY:
Memorial Concerts for Underground Legend of Avant Jazz Will Connell

As winter
descends over Alphabet City, the homeland of radical arts mourns the loss of one
of its own. Saxophonist/bass clarinetist/composer Will Connell Jr died on
November 19; his music and life are to be celebrated in a Christmas-week event
at the Stone. He came of age in the 1960s as an invaluable part of Horace
Tapscott’s organization and the LA Black Arts Movement, and stood as an
underground giant of NY’s Free Jazz and New Music circle since 1975. His sudden
passing occurred just weeks before his planned residency at the Stone (Dec
23-28) and days shy of his 76th birthday. The musicians who were to
be a part of Connell’s residency have vowed to keep his vision alive in this
series of concerts which now stand in his honor and memory; all of the proceeds will serve as a
fundraiser for Will’s family.

The music performed
will be an amalgam of Connell’s more than half-century as a performing artist:
compositions ranging from those associated with Tapscott to his latest works as
well as the free improvisation he was so fond of. The variety of sounds embody
Connell’s stage and studio life; his resume sported gigs with Cecil Taylor, Sam
Rivers, David Murray, William Parker, Charles Gayle, Chico Hamilton, and Anthony
Braxton. A core downtown figure, Connell also engaged James Chance, Minor
Threat, Black Flag and Ryan Adams in creative endeavors—a performance pedigree
ranging from hip Jazz to New Thing to No Wave. From basement clubs to the
Newport and Moers festivals to nation-wide TV broadcasts. The musical fabric
Connell brings to the Stone also includes his work as a music copyist, laying
down the score for Ornette Coleman’s “Skies of America”, the World Saxophone
Quartet and many of Motown LA’s best.Known as an understated, quiet giant of the music, Will Connell’s voice
is best heard through his alto saxophone, bass clarinet and flute, drenched in
the rich tapestry.

The
program at the Stone will open on December 23 with words by Will’s daughter, poet
and actress Safiya Martinez, and then move into two powerful sets by Will’s
13-piece band, the Dark Tree Ensemble.
This collection of works, “World Peace,
With or Without People: Music from the Legacy of Horace Tapscott”, is split
between LA compositions and those from Will’s nearly 40 years in NYC. This
world premiere, featuring Tapscott’s brilliant music in perspective and also as
a reference for Connell’s own compositions, promises to be historic and serves
as a statement for these years of ongoing global conflict.

Christmas
Eve and Christmas Day the club is dark, but the residency continues from the
26th through the 28th. The focus will be on Connell’s collaborations with other
artists over the years including Vincent
Chancey, Connie Crothers, Jorge Sylvester, Rocco John Iacovone, Golda Solomon, Andrea Wolper, Michael TA Thompson and
many more, in large assemblages and intimate combos. The sounds range from free
to world music, new composition to latter-day Beat poetry to exploratory
visions.

Event:
WILL CONNELL MEMORIAL WEEK: Celebrating the Life & Music of the Heart &
Soul of Downtown

The son
of a violin prodigy deprived of the profession by racist politics, Will Connell
Jr became aware of both music and the struggle for justice as a child of the
‘40s. Jazz served as a source of art and great pride for the African American
community, and its impact on Connell was nothing short of visceral: “I heard
Billie Holiday at 17. Tears ran down my face like Niagara Falls”. That same
year, 1956, Connell joined the US Air Force, serving some nine years. In
between tours he purchased an alto saxophone but didn’t dedicate himself to
music until surviving a chemical blast that blinded him for several days. Lying
in an Air Force hospital in darkness, Connell vowed that if he regained his
eyesight, he’d formally study this art that had driven him so deeply. This and
the gnawing outrage about the military’s treatment of Black servicemen led to
his decision re-join civilian life. Studies at LA City College (Dolphy’s alma
mater) led to years of close work with Horace Tapscott wherein Connell served
as reeds player and music librarian and copyist. The Tapscott organization was
LA’s paramount arm of the Black Arts Movement and its immersion into African
American culture and liberation had a lasting impact on Connell. By 1975
Connell relocated to NYC’s Lower East Side where he resided for the rest of his
life. Through the decades he performed or recorded with such luminaries as
Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, William Parker, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Chico
Hamilton, Pharoah Sanders, Butch Morris, Roy Campbell, Sam Rivers, Steve Swell,
Billy Bang, Henry Threadgill, Oliver Lake, Daniel Carter, Jason Hwang and many
others. He also engaged in extensive projects as music copyist, most notably
Ornette Coleman’s ‘Skies of America’ as well as for David Murray's Big Band,
the World Saxophone Quartet and a bevy of R & B and pop artists ranging
from Michael Jackson and Roberta Flack to Stevie Wonder and Simon &
Garfunkel.

Will
Connell was a deeply relevant part of this rather unclassifiable musical genre
which prides itself on free improvisation as much as post-modern composition,
global sounds and the bite of revolutionary politics. Usually preferring to be
a member of a band as opposed to its leader, Connell may have been the last of
the modest greats. Having served as guest curator at the Stone in 2012, which
brought him some note, and featured earlier this year in the Arts for Art
organization’s series, and as a member of the Veterans of Free on the Tribute
to ‘New York Eye & Ear Control’ concert in June, this master of the New
Jazz is now recalled at his rightful place at front and center.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Will Connell at the 2014 Dissident Arts Festival, NYC (photo by Gil Selinger)

Loss of a Quiet Giant: Will Connell 1938-2014

An Obituary by John Pietaro

I was heartily saddened by the sudden unexpected
phone call: downtown’s unsung hero of Free Jazz, Will Connell Jr, was
hospitalized and non-responsive. Immediately the jazz and new music community
rallied and the outpouring of love for Will was apparent. We’d all been preparing
for his big moment at the front of the stage, his week-long residency at the
Stone, set to occur in December. None of this made sense yet one day later,
November 19, the hush of mourning closed
out all else; the little giant was lost to us.

Though Will and I only came to know each
other several years ago, I connected deeply to him: both in music and politics.
When he hired me this past September to serve as publicist for his long-awaited
residency at the Stone, we shared long conversations and Will spoke of how
deeply this music, the once-New Thing, was born enmeshed in radicalism. When the
music and the movement are divergent, the soul, the fight, withdraws. It touched me when he commented, in his
characteristic style, "Hey maaaan, you are the most revolutionary cat I‘ve
known in many years. You might be the most revolutionary cat I ever met".
Coming from this giant of Free, this cohort of Black Arts and comrade of some
very heavy activists, this was indeed a prideful moment.

More than anything, Will was elated
about this Christmas-week residency at the Stone. It was a major
acknowledgement of his many years of creativity---in his own adopted ‘hood of
nearly forty years. This series of concerts was a retrospective of his musical
career as well as a focus on his current performance. He asked me to craft a
publicity campaign to highlight the residency’s widespread reach: Will’s own
music and that of Horace Tapscott, whom he was most closely associated with,
but also many of the NYC friends with whom he'd made music over the decades.
Wisdom of his age, Will recognized that he might not get this chance again---so
this had to be a performance of the highest level. We discussed his vision for
the residency and particularly his ideas for the premier of "World Peace,
With or Without People--the Legacy of Horace Tapscott”, which he was most
excited about. Here, the sounds and the activism would indeed converge.

Will had called me on November 12, a
week before his transition, and I immediately heard something in his voice
other that the sing-song greeting I'd grown used to. There was anxiety and
urgency. He explained he needed to go into the hospital on Friday for same-day surgery
and even as he down-played it, I heard the fear. We spoke about this and he
told me that he’d only told three people about the procedure he needed: he'd
based this on the old adage that in an emergency, "you only call three
people: your doctor, your lawyer and your publicist". We laughed over this
but he asked me not to speak of it to anyone and I assured him that I would not
and that I would check in with him over the weekend. When I called him next,
the call went right to voice mail--and I never got a call back. I suspected
there'd been complications and considered whom I should call to inquire. And
then the grim reports began to come in.

As of this writing, the musicians
slated to be a part of the week-long residency are hell-bent on keeping Will’s
vision alive. Several have been in touch with Will’s daughter Safiyah in this
hard time. Our thoughts are with her and the rest of the family. Though details need to be ironed out with the Stone, the current
plan is that the week of December 23-28 shall serve as a celebration of Will’s
life, a feature for his music, his artistry and the visceral socio-political heart
of it all.

*******

Will
Connell Jr was introduced to music by his father, a violin prodigy. Deprived by
racist politics of a career in the classical world, Connell Sr contented his
musical longings to avid listening. But music was central to African American family
life and jazz served as a vehicle of both art and great pride over the
generations. Will Jr became acutely aware of the sounds of Jazz and all music
from his earliest memory and was immersed in it even before: “I was told by my parents that Art Tatum
played the little piano at my grandmother's house when I was an infant”,
Connell recently recalled.

As
soon as Will Jr was old enough, he began accompanying his father to LA jazz
clubs and concert halls where most of the greatest jazz artists of the 1940s
and 50s were performing. He became immediately drawn to the saxophonists but
elements of the music offered a visceral response that was life-changing: “I heard Billie Holiday at 17. Tears ran
down my face like Niagara Falls”, Connell offered in retrospect. That same
year, 1956, he was inducted into the Air Force, where he remained for some nine
years. Between tours of duty, Connell purchased an alto saxophone and it
accompanied him to Okinawa. Performances in bars followed but Connell didn’t
become serious about music until a suffering a profound experience wherein he
was blinded for several days by a chemical blast. Connell pondered his future
in the darkness. He vowed then that if he regained his eyesight, he was going
to formally study this art that had driven him so deeply. This promise, as well
as his growing outrage about the military’s treatment of Black servicemen and
people of color around the world, saw him leave the Air Force forthwith.

In
1965 Connell studied at LA City College (Eric Dolphy’s alma mater) while he
worked evenings at the local Post Office; during breaks Will studied harmony.
Around this time Connell became acquainted with Horace Tapscott, then in the
process of building a powerful community-based organization inspired by both
the early Black Arts Movement and the Watts riots: The Union of God’s Musicians
and Artists Ascension (UGMAA) and the Pan African People’s Arkestra (PAPA).
Almost immediately, Connell took a central role in both the organization and
ensemble; he was the latter’s librarian. Tapscott urged Connell to learn the
craft of music copying and he took tutelage with copyists at the Motown label,
now transplanted to LA. Through this association, he began working as a copyist
for a wide variety of R and B artists, including Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack
and Michael Jackson, as well as pop artists outside of Motown, Simon and
Garfunkel among them.He also worked as
copyist for Tapscott’s large ensemble, writing out the parts for diverse
instruments even as he performed with it and the smaller groups that sprang
from it.

Connell
credits Tapscott with his political education as well: a young Angela Davis was
a frequent guest at the organization’s gatherings and they had a close
association with the Black Panther Party and played its theme song, “Seize the
Time” in the regular repertoire. The Tapscott bands also played regular gigs at
various college Black Student Unions, high schools (at one of these they played
opposite Sun Ra’s band) and community events. Almost immediately after Angela
Davis’ arrest, Tapscott’s band served as the pit band of a new theatre work by
Jack Wilson, ‘Free Angela!’. Connell recalled that while the actors were hesitantly
preparing for the premiere, Tapscott took charge and led the band in a lengthy
set of explosive music which saw the crowded house quaking with jubilance. The
movement was thriving.

By
1975, Connell would ultimately leave LA and Tapscott for New York City, which
would remain his home. Residing on the Lower East Side, Connell encountered the
fading jazz loft scene and the edge of the Beat Generation poets’ waning days.
But he was already an elder statesman of the new jazz which became vital as 20th
century composition melded into free jazz and the legacy of the blues; this
“new thing” crossed culture and encouraged inter-racial creativity through its
celebration of radicalism. The music was immediate and vital and Will happily submerged
himself into its center.

After
arriving here, Connell sought out Arthur Blythe, who’d been a part of
Tapscott’s band and was now playing with noted drummer-leader Chico Hamilton. Brand
new to the city, Will sat in the control room as Hamilton’s band recorded a
largely improvised score for a Fritz the Cat cartoon film and he immediately
grabbed some manuscript paper and sketched out the music notation as the band
played. Presenting it to Hamilton, the impressed leader hired Will to write out
the scores for other performances, committing to paper what had previously been
lost to the air. Connell was added to the band as multi-reeds player, where
Paul Horn, Dolphy and others had preceded him.

A
year later, Connell was a part of William Parker’s Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra
and made an immediate impact downtown. Over the next three decades, he became
an integral part of bands led by Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, Butch Morris,
Pharaoh Sanders, Roy Campbell, Sam Rivers, Steve Swell, Billy Bang, Henry Threadgill,
Oliver Lake, Daniel Carter, Frank Lowe and many others. Somehwere in there he
toured with Philly Joe Jones too. He also engaged in extensive projects as
music copyist, the most famous of which was Ornette Coleman’s ‘Skies of
America’; Will’s work allowed Ornette to see a conductor’s score of this
celebrated piece for the first time. He also did the music copying for David
Murray's Big Band, the Craig Harris/Seku Sundiata Project for Brown University,
and the World Saxophone Quartet, including their Jimmy Hendrix Album.

Connell
co-founded the band Commitment with Jason Hwang, William Parker and Zen
Maatsura in 1978. The band would perform at the Kool Jazz Festival and Moers
Jazz Festival during its first year. But in the same period, he began creating
music with the newest residents of the East Village, punk rockers and no wave
artists. These included James Chance, as well as the bands Minor Threat and
Black Flag when they came through town. Other LES jazz musicians who found this
genre welcoming included Daniel Carter and Sabir Mateen. Don Cherry also spent
significant time with members of Talking Heads and in this period Ornette
Coleman lived on Prince Street and grew Prime Time. There was fertile ground
for powerful cross-pollination. Connell saw the
connection between the ‘70s-‘80s punk movement and the 1960s’ special brand of openness,
acceptance and need to break with convention. Through this circle he became
acquainted with singer-songwriter Ryan Adams, with whom he’d perform on TV’s
David Letterman show some years later.

Through
the ‘80s and ‘90s, when downtown became Downtown,
the music was celebrated and played globally. Will Connell was there to give it
street cred. And he continued on this path to serve as a genuine artifact even
as he offered a kind of youthful enthusiasm to the moment. Into this century,
the vitality was there and an aging Will Connell apparently knew no bounds,
never had the want to slow down. He led a series of combos that included such
names as Tomas Ulrich, Anders Nilsson, Thurman Barker, Ras Moshe so many others
and thrived in his work with the quartet Sadhana, co-led by Vincent Chancey and
powered by the young energy of Max Johnson and Jeremy Calstedt. Will was a
charter member of the Jazz and Poetry Collective and a series of other bands he
was only happy to be a part of if the vibe was there. He served as guest
curator at the Stone in 2012, which brought him some note, and his renown among
the musicians only grew as he encountered still newer music adventurers and
visitors along the way. Yet popular acclaim continued to elude him. Will was a featured
performer earlier this year in an Arts
for Art concert dedicated to Tapscott’s legacy. He was also a member of the at
least a couple of all-star bands for events that this author produced including
the ‘Drums For Warren’ benefit concert in support of Warren Smith, and the ‘The
Tribute to New York Eye & Ear Control’ concert this past June and the 2014 Dissident Arts Festival of which he was the headliner.

Though rarely in the spotlight over the decades, Will
Connell was a deeply relevant part of this rather unclassifiable musical genre
which prides itself on free improvisation as much as post-modern composition,
the expansiveness of world sounds and the bite of revolutionary politics. And
yet his message, at the close of each warm encounter, remained “peace”. That
was Will, the rebel who extended an open hand, never a fist. Usually preferring
to be a member of a band as opposed to its leader, often seen as “a section
man” in larger ensembles and a “background” guy though a powerfully screaming
soloist, Connell may have been the last of the modest greats. And oh, how this
quiet giant is missed.

peace, Will....
peace

John Pietaro is a musician, writer and cultural organizer from Brooklyn, New York - www.DissidentArts.com

About Me

John Pietaro, writer/musician/cultural organizer; Staff Writer, The NYC Jazz Record. Contributing Writer: Z Magazine, the Nation, CounterPunch, the Wire, many others. His latest book, ON THE CREATIVE FRONT: ESSAYS ON THE CULTURE OF LIBERATION, is under review for publication. Pietaro also wrote a chapter for the Harvey Pekar/Paul Buhle book SDS: A GRAPHIC HISTORY (2007 Hill &Wang). In 2013 he self-published a volume of contemporary proletarian fiction, NIGHT PEOPLE. Current projects: co-writing/editing the autobiography of Amina Baraka; authoring a novel. Founded NEW MASSES MEDIA in 2013, production/ publicity company. As a musician Pietaro performs on the NYC free jazz/new music circuit on hand drums, drumkit, vibraphone, percussion, voice. Over the years he has created music with Amina Baraka, Alan Ginsberg, Pete Seeger, Karl Berger, Fred Ho, Ras Moshe, many more. Leader: the Red Microphone. Founder/producer, annual Dissident Arts Festival. Pietaro has spoken on arts activism at Left Forum, the Vision Festival and other venues. He is a member of the Author's Guild, PEN America, National Writers Union UAW 1981 and Jazz Journalists Association

NIGHT PEOPLE and Other Tales of Working NY

'THE RED MICROPHONE SPEAKS!' CD, 2013

"Revenge of the Atom Spies" (2007)

The Flames of Discontent: Laurie Towers & John Pietaro ..................SCROLL DOWN FOR an extensive 'PHOTO EXHIBIT' of cultural workers in history and a thorough list of 'RADICAL LINKS' !

'Little Red Song Book'

still fanning the flames

John Reed and Boardman Robinson, 1913

The revolutionary writer and political cartoonist in Europe

Edward Hopper

"Night on the El Train", 1918

Anti-War Dance

Anti-War Dance - WW1

Louis Fraina

Writer and early Communist movement leader was later purged from the CP in a haze of controversy. Currently all traces of him remain disappeared from official Party documents

William Gropper: "Revolutionary Age", July 1919

Organ of the Left-Wing of the SPUSA (roots of the CPUSA), edited by Louis Fraina

The Funeral of JOHN REED

1920--at the Kremlin Wall

'Metropolis'

Fritz Lang's powerful depiction of a futuristic society ruled by a lazy bourgeois totally dependent on the laboring of the workers in the depths of the city

'New Masses', 1928

Amazingly hip artwork by Louis Lozowick

Brecht in Leathers

Somehow encompasses all that was 30s Berlin and 70s New York all at the same time

The chilling art of Fred Ellis

from "The Daily Worker", 1931

Debs, with Max Eastman and Rose Pastor Stokes

The patron saint of the Socialist Party working closely with Communist Party cultural leaders--the arts can climb above the fray

'The Red Songbook'

compiled by members of the Composers Collective of NY, a CPUSA cultural organization

Langston Hughes

Eisler and Brecht

Composer Hanns Eisler and poet Bertolt Brecht, revolutionary artists

'Song of the United Front''

music by Hanns Eisler, lyric by Bertolt Brecht

Sid Hoff, 'The Daily Worker', 1930s

"Thank God he doesn't have to swim with the dirty masses in Coney Island"

Paul Robeson

performing for British strikers, 1930s

Stuart Davis

at work

'The Anvil'

Organ of the John Reed Club, 1934

The Rebel Song Book, 1935

Socialist Party cultural publication compiled by SP poet and journalist Samuel H. Friedman. In these fervant years Friedman almost singlehandedly led the Socialist arts program which included much live perforamnce, literature, lectures, gallery exhibits and even the radio station WEVD, named for Debs, which broadcast radio dramas, music and speeches.

The League of American Writers

1936 statement on the urgency of the Spanish Civil War by this powerfully united group of Left and liberal writers, coalesced through a CP initiaitive. The League was an an outgrowth of the American Writers Congress. As strong as this grouping was, its creation also sounded the death toll for the more radical John Reed Club, which was dissolved by Party leaders this same year.

'Waiting for Lefty', 1935

The Group Theatre's debut production of Odets immortal agit-prop play. Yes, that's a young Elia Kazan out in front shouting 'Strike! Strike!" decades before the crisis of conscience and career which saw him naming names in his second HUAC hearing. But wasn't this a time?

'Proletarin Literature in the United States'

1935, the first serious collection, edited by Granville Hicks and featuring the work of Mike Gold, Isidor Schneider, Joseph North, and other noted writers of the day

Artists Union

American Artists Congress, 1936

depicted by Stuart Davis

The Benny Goodman Quartet, 1937

Goodman's combo was revolutionary in that it was fully integrated in a time of terrible racism--further the Quartet laid down the ground work for all chamber jazz to come. The blurring solos of Lionel Hampton's vibraphone brought that instrument into the forefront as a major voice in jazz; Gene Krupa's drumming in this period also created a major role for percussionists in all aspects of this genre. Not to forget Teddy Wilson's brilliant piano playing and the clarinet of the leader!

Partisan Review editors, 1938

Phillip Rahv and Dwight McDonald and co.

'Native Son'

Richard Wright's groundbreaking novel, 1940

Disney Cartoonists Strike!

1941--the very radical cartoonists' union takes the studio by storm

Josh White, Leadbelly and friends

1940, NYC, BBC radio airshot

Leadbelly

"Bougeois Blues"

Carl Sandburg

He covered the march of Coxey's Army, became an early Socialist Party cultural worker and was still a beloved, celebrated elder of American folk culture!

John Howard Lawson, HUAC Hearing

speaking back to power

Hollywood on trial

The Ten included Herbert Biberman, screenwriter and director Ring Lardner Jr., screenwriter John Howard Lawson, screenwriter Edward Dmytryk, director Adrian Scott, producer and screenwriter Samuel Ornitz, screenwriter Lester Cole, screenwriter Albert Maltz, screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, screenwriter Alvah Bessie, screenwriter Also the great Charlie Chaplin left the U.S to fink work because he was blacklisted. Only 10% of the artists succeeded in rebuilding their careers.

Dalton Trumbo

HUAC hearing

Arthur Miller

HUAC vs the playwright

Paul Robeson, 1949

immediately after the Peekskill Riot

Ralph Ellison

'Invisible Man'

The Weavers

Lillian Hellman

Wonderfully atmospheric shot of the brilliant playwright who stared down HUAC

'Masses and Mainstream'

1953

'High Noon', 1952

Gary Cooper stars in the film by blacklisted writer Carl Foreman, a perfect allegory for the isolative stand of those who opposed HUAC and McCarthy

'Howl' by Allen Ginsberg

The militantly revolutionary Gay poet's groundbreaking work, 1956

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee

the couple modeled the concept of the artist/activist with their brilliant acting abilities and consistent place on the front lines of the struggles for civil rights and labor unions

Beat Poets

In this 1959 photograph taken in New York City, composer/musician David Amram (top right) is seen with some of the artists, poets and writers who would become the leaders of "The Beat Generation." They include (clockwise from Amram): poet Allen Ginsburg, writer Gregory Corso (back to camera), artist Larry Rivers and author Jack Kerouac. Photo: John Cohen, Courtesy of david amram

En Route to Chicago, '68

Jean Genet, William Burrough, Alan Ginsberg--noted poet-activists who were also loud and proud Gay liberationists

'What's Going On?'

Marvin Gaye

The Last Poets

1968: the interplay of free verse poetry, improvisation and the politicis of race and revolution

'Ohio', 1970

CSNY's song offered chilling, driving commentary on the shootings at Kent State University

War Is Over!(if you want it)

A Christmas message from John and Yoko, Times Square, NYC, 1970

Bob Marley

"Get Up, Stand Up"

Samuel Friedman

The Socialist Party's cultural leader seen here in a 1977 pic with his wife. Friedman was a journalist and activist who, after the dissolution of the SP's arts efforts, became one of the Party's candidates for often on multiple occasion (photo by Steve Rossignol).

Peter Tosh

'Talking Revolution'

Rock Against Racism

here's the album collection which chronicled the 1976 and '78 British concerts established to fight the rising trend of neo-fascist skinhead gangs in the UK

Robert Mapplethorpe

This gifted, militantly Gay photogrpaher set off a firestorm of controversy in opposition to the neo-cons of the Reagan administration and the Edwin Meese "decency" doctrine.

Patti Smith

brazenly outspoken punk poet and activist, late 1970s

'Reds' 1982

Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton as John Reed and Louise Bryant, en route to Petrograd

ROCK AGAINST REAGAN

The Dead Kennedys headed up the bill for this protest concert, Washington DC, 1983

Nuyorican Poets Cafe

'Bedtime for Democracy'

Public Enemy

Karen Finley

The sexually provacative feminist performance artist did constant battle with the neo-cons of the 1980s and '90s and became a poster child for right-wing calls to suspend funding to the NEA

'Mumia 911'

This series of arts-actions occured in multiple spaces throughout NYC and other cities in an attempt to raise both funds and awareness for the cause of Mumia Abu-Jamal, journalist and Black Panther who was framed on a police murder charge in the lates '70s and continues to sit in death row now. For this event, NY's Brecht Forum hosted an all-day marathon on September 11, 1999, the house band of which was led by John Pietaro.

Pete Seeger, Music in the History of Struggle, 1999

with the Ray Korona Band, John Pietaro on percussion. 1199SEIU auditorium, NYC

Ani DiFranco

Fred Ho

The revolutionary saxophonist/composer has successfully forged an avant garde music which bridges improvisation and New Music composition w/ Marxism, Maoism and traditional Chinese folk art.

'Not in Our Name'

Charlie Haden reunites his revolutionary ensemble one more time to speak out against the Bush administration's manipulations of the populace, 2005.

The Brecht Forum

The Brecht Forum/NYC Marxist School came to be a fixture of Left education and culture in the early 1970s lasting through 2014.

New Masses Nights

Joe Hill

The Industrial Workers Band

Arturo Giovannitti, around 1912

brilliant IWW poet/organizer who composed epic pieces about his imprisonment and the struggle for a more equitable society

Ralph Chaplin

IWW songwriter and journalist who penned "Solidarity Forever" in 1911

John Reed at his desk

note the Provincetown Playhouse poster!

Robert Minor, 'The Masses'

July 1916

Louise Bryant

Crusading journalist seen here approx 1918

Max Eastman

writer, activist, editor of 'The Masses'

Isadora Duncan

Modern Dance in revolution

Robert Minor

The radical artist and leading CPUSA functionary

Michael Gold

Cultural conscience of 'the Daily Worker', 'New Masses' and acclaimed proletarian novelist seen here addresseing a May Day crowd on the streets of Manhattan, early 1930s.

"Costume Ball--Where All Toilers Meet!"

The Daily Worker, January 14, 1928

VJ Jerome

Communist Party cultural commissar

NYC, 1931: A delegation of the John Reed Club following a trip to Harlan County, VA

John Dos Passos, Theodore Dreiser, Sam Ornitz

'The Crisis'

1933, radical magazine of Black American militancy

Marc Blitzstein

member of the Composers Collective of New York

'Negro Songs of Protest'

Compiled by Lawrence Gellert, illustrations by his brother the great Communist artist Hugo Gellert. The songs were arranged by Ellie Siegmeister of the Composers Collective of NY

'The Workers Song book, Workers Music League, 1934

compiled by the Composers Collective of New York

American Artists' Congress

Signed by AAC Secretary STUART DAVIS

Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera

"Class Struggle"

Diego Rivera's amazing work told the story of the workers' fight against capitalist exploitation --and was created as a commision for Rockefeller Center's main hall. It was not long before John D had the piece destroyed.

'Processional', 1937

modernist drama by John Howard Lawson, a leader of CPUSA cultural activists

The Almanac Singers, 1941

THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS

Woody

Silent speak-back to HUAC

George Orwell

the British writer maintained his democratic socialist views through his great novels

Earl Robinson, ca 1940s

member of the Composers Collective of New York, leader of the American People's Chorus and a musician of the people throughout his career. Among his compositions was "Joe Hill", "The House I Live in", "Ballad for Americans" and "Black and White"

Hanns Eisler, HUAC hearing, 1947

Trumbo and Lawson

Paul Robeson at Peekskill

Flanked by unionist and Communist guards, staring down the fascist mobs at Peekskill NY, 1949

Sinclair Lewis

'It Can't Happen Here'

Dashiell Hammet

closing out the HUAC onslaught

'Salt of the Earth'

Paul Robeson shouts down HUAC

"You are the Un-Americans--and you should be ashamed of yourselves!"

W.E.B. DuBois

Stockholm Peace Conference, 1955

'Rebel Poets of America', 1957 LP

Kenneth Patchen and Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Amiri Baraka

"We Insist!--Freedom Now Suite"

Max Roach with Abbey Lincoln

Lorraine Hansberry

Peter, Paul and Mary

1963 March on Washington

'Spartacus', 1964

The tale of a unified slave revolt was first written by Howard Fast in novel form and then realized for the screen by Dalton Trumbo

Bill Dixon's OCTOBER REVOLUTION IN JAZZ, 1964

John Coltrane

Seen here performing his powerful piece, "Alabama" on German television, 1965. The story of the church bombing which killed four African American girls and injured others was retold in this mournful work.

The Fugs

Radical Greenwich Village poets turn rock-n-rollers of a whole other sort, 1965

Freedom Marching

James Baldwin, Joan Baez, and James Forman (left to right) enter Montgomery, Alabama on the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights, 1965.

You Can't Jail the Revolution

Shades of Chicago, '68

Sam Rivers

The great jazz musician who helped to found the avant garde loft scene in the 1960s was devoutly outspoken with regard to radical politics and the incorporation of same into his music. He is seen here performing at his own NYC space, Studio Rivbea. From the look of that tom-tom to the left, the drummer is Milford Graves who not only broke new ground into improvisational music but its part in Black liberation and other revolutionary struggles.

Henry Cow, late '60s

British avant rock band also engaged in social statements and celebrated the music of Brecht & Eisler

Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra

1969: Bassist extraordinaire Haden (right) unites with pianist-arranger Carla Bley (left), trumpeter Don Cherry (kneeling) and a wealth of others to create a radical album of anti-war music. Included in the collection was a powerful reconfiguring of Brecht and Eisler's Song of the United Front

Gil Scott Heron

"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"

MC 5

Kicking out the jam as well as the walls of conformity

Rally for John Sinclair

this fund- and awareness-raising event was in honor of the noted anti-war activist who'd been arrested on trumped-up drug charges. It featured John and Yoko, Alan Ginsberg, Phil Ochs, Archie Shepp, Commander Cody and a host of others

Art Ensemble of Chicago

Revolutionary composition/improvisation: "a great Black music"

Victor Jara

The great Chilean revolutionary songwriter

TILLIE OLSEN w/MAYA ANGELOU

Writers March Against Apartheid, 1970s

Frederic Rzewski

In 1975 the composer created "THE PEOPLE UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED", inspired by the struggles of farm workers and militants around the globe

Richard Hell

Nihilistic poet of punk performing with the Voidoids at CBGB

ABC No Rio

activist performance space, NY's Lower East Side

'London Calling'

The Clash

Fela Kuti

Revolution in song from Nigeria

'Bonzo Goes to Bitburg', 1985

The Ramones satiric commentary on Reagan's visit to the Nazi soldiers cemetary

'Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing'

Artist Space, NYC, 1989: reactionaries tried at all costs to shut down this boldly outspoken exhibit on AIDS

Day Without Art

Visual AIDS and other arts activist organizations created a Day Without Art to commemorate World AIDS Day

Tupac Shakur

Militant Hip Hop 101

'Somebody Blew Up America'

Amiri Baraka, fearlessly taking on the controversial causes of the 9/11 attacks

Robeson

After falling victim to a nation which tried to disappear him, Paul Robeson is honored with his own stamp

The first Dissident Fest: The Dissident Folk Festival 2006

This event featured Malachy McCourt, Pete Seeger, Bev Grant, Lack and a bevy of radical jazz musicians, poets and more